Boss Wang swung a heavy rubber truncheon against the rusted corrugated-iron gate of Swift-Flash Delivery Station, glaring at thirty battered electric scooters chained to the concrete yard’s iron pillars like prisoners in a stockade.
Around his boots, the cracked asphalt of Industrial District North was slick with motor oil and puddles of brown rainwater. Piles of torn cardboard boxes, popped bubble wrap, and discarded instant-noodle cups littered the yard.
This station was notorious among couriers across the district. For three years, Boss Wang had operated it like a private feudal sweatshop. Every rider was forced to pay a three-thousand-yuan scooter deposit and rent defective lithium batteries at triple the market rate.
If a delivery was delayed by three minutes in a thunderstorm, Boss Wang fined the courier fifty yuan. If a cardboard box got wet, he fined them two hundred.
Xiao Liu, a twenty-year-old rider from a mountain village, had his entire monthly wages withheld when his mother was hospitalized with severe pneumonia. Brother Da-Hai, an honest veteran rider of forty-five, had been forced into an underground usury loan just to pay for a replacement battery that caught fire on his second day.
In the center of the yard, forty-two-year-old Old Ma lay on his side against a stack of splintered wooden pallets. His yellow delivery jacket was shredded at the shoulder. Blood trickled from his split lip, and each shallow breath sent stabbing agony through his cracked ribs.
Even while pinned to the filthy concrete, Old Ma’s bruised fingers tightly clutched a waterproof delivery pouch. Inside lay a stamped delivery receipt and an empty protective canister.
Earlier that morning, Old Ma had taken an urgent order for pediatric cardiac medicine. While riding through a busy intersection, a stray dog had darted in front of his wheel. Old Ma swerved hard to avoid the animal, skidding across wet asphalt and smashing into a steel barrier.
Despite two cracked ribs and a bleeding knee, Old Ma had refused to stop. When his front wheel jammed, he abandoned the broken scooter and ran the final two miles on foot through the rain. He handed the life-saving medicine directly to a weeping young mother before limping back to the station to report the accident.
“You stubborn old dog!” Boss Wang yelled, spitting on the ground.
Boss Wang stood over Old Ma, wearing a greasy windbreaker and a thick gold-plated chain. In his right hand, he slapped a heavy rubber security truncheon against his palm with a menacing rhythm. Four burly station bouncers with dyed yellow hair stood behind him, holding iron tire irons and lead pipes.
“Kneel down and bark like a dog, Old Ma!” Boss Wang barked, his face twisting with spite. “Do that, or you won’t see a single fen of your three-thousand-yuan scooter deposit for your daughter’s milk powder! How dare you crash your bike and dent my battery casing to avoid hitting a stray mutt!”
Around the yard, twenty-nine other delivery riders in faded yellow jackets stood with clenched fists. Tears of humiliation and rage welled in their eyes.
“Boss Wang, have some human decency!” Xiao Liu shouted, taking a step forward. “Old Ma delivered that medicine on time! The mother called the station to thank him! His five-year-old daughter is in the hospital waiting for milk powder!”
“Shut your mouth, Xiao Liu!” one of the bouncers snarled, waving a heavy tire iron. “All thirty of your scooters belong to Boss Wang! If anyone speaks another word, we keep your entire monthly wages and blacklist your delivery accounts across the city!”
Boss Wang laughed, a greasy, mocking sound that grated on everyone’s ears.
“You couriers are just disposable mules,” Boss Wang said, lighting a cheap cigarette. “My brother-in-law is Scarface Hu! He has two hundred fighters in the Hu-Claw Syndicate and the top commercial lawyers in the district! Anyone who defies my station will be chased out of Jiangcheng on their knees!”
Boss Wang sneered at the silent crowd. He raised his heavy rubber truncheon, aiming it directly at Old Ma’s bruised right hand. “Since you like holding delivery bags so much, let’s see how you hold handlebars with crushed fingers!”
The rubber truncheon whistled through the air, descending toward Old Ma’s knuckles with vicious force.
Old Ma squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the bone-shattering blow.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
A comical, high-pitched mechanical squeaking broke the tense silence of the yard.
A battered yellow electric scooter—the exact squeaky scooter that Lin Mo had ridden on his final shift five days ago—coasted smoothly through the station’s rusted iron gates.
Riding the rusted scooter was Lin Mo. He wore his tailored charcoal-gray Italian suit, his polished black leather shoes resting easily on the plastic floorboard.
The contrast was absurd. A billionaire chairman worth forty-five billion yuan, riding a squeaking five-hundred-yuan scooter with cracked mirrors.
In the split second before the rubber truncheon could strike Old Ma’s hand, Lin Mo’s figure vanished from the scooter seat.
Moving with the imperceptible velocity of a Rank 1 Peak Martial artist, Lin Mo appeared directly between Boss Wang and Old Ma.
His pale, bare right hand reached up and caught the descending rubber truncheon in midair.
The heavy blow stopped instantly, without causing Lin Mo’s fingers to move a millimeter.
Boss Wang blinked in shock. He pulled with both arms, trying to wrench the truncheon back. The weapon felt welded to a solid granite mountain.
“What the...” Boss Wang gasped, his eyes darting up to Lin Mo’s face.
Lin Mo looked at Boss Wang with a deadpan, calm gaze.
“Boss Wang,” Lin Mo said, his tone dry as chalk. “Five days ago, you told me that forty-five hundred yuan of unpaid wages was an administrative delay. Today, you are breaking ribs over a dented battery. Your management style has become remarkably aggressive.”
With a casual twist of his wrist, Lin Mo applied two thousand pounds of crushing grip force.
CRACK!
The hardened steel reinforcing core inside the heavy rubber truncheon snapped in half. Lin Mo pulled the two pieces apart like a stale breadstick and tossed them into a puddle beside Boss Wang’s shoes.
Boss Wang stumbled back four steps, his eyes bulging in pure horror. “Lin Mo? You... you broke delivery boy! How did you get so strong?”
Xiao Liu and Brother Da-Hai dropped their plastic repair wrenches, staring at the crumpled steel rod in disbelief.
“It’s Xiao Lin!” “Xiao Lin is back!”
Lin Mo knelt down beside Old Ma on the wet concrete. His Pure-Heart Eye activated instantly:
[TARGET: OLD MA (COURIER)]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 90/100 (DEVOTED FATHER, HONEST WORKER, RESCUED STRAY ANIMALS)]
[PHYSICAL STATUS: TWO CRACKED RIBS, CONTUSED SPLEEN, HYPOTHERMIA]
Lin Mo placed his palm gently against Old Ma’s chest. A stream of warm, soothing Rank 1 Peak Martial qi flowed into the older man’s torso, instantly dulling the sharp nerve agony and stabilizing the cracked ribs.
Old Ma’s eyes widened. He gripped Lin Mo’s sleeve with trembling fingers. “Xiao Mo... you came back? Run! Boss Wang’s brother-in-law is Scarface Hu! They have connections with the underworld loan sharks!”
“Nobody is running, Old Ma,” Lin Mo said gently, helping the veteran rider sit up against a dry wooden crate. “You ran two miles on foot to deliver heart drops to a stranger’s baby. Men like you don’t run from grease-stained thieves.”
Lin Mo stood up, turning to face the four yellow-haired bouncers who were raising their tire irons.
“Get him!” Boss Wang shrieked, backing toward his office door. “Break his legs and take his wallet!”
The four bouncers lunged forward with savage snarls.
Lin Mo didn’t even shift his footing. He simply swept his left arm forward in a swift, fluid curve, releasing a wave of compressed martial wind.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
A shockwave of invisible air pressure struck all four bouncers simultaneously. They flew backward through the air like discarded rag dolls, crashing into a stack of rusted oil drums forty feet away. The drums collapsed on top of them, burying them in iron lids and dented metal.
Boss Wang’s jaw unhinged completely. His knees began knocking together like wooden castanets. “You... what kind of monster are you?!”
Lin Mo walked toward Boss Wang with steady, measured footsteps.
“I am the drafter whose forty-five hundred yuan of wages you withheld,” Lin Mo said. “Remember that rainy afternoon outside the luxury plaza? You told me I wasn’t qualified to earn living wages.”
Lin Mo turned his gaze toward the twenty-nine honest couriers huddled by the chained scooters. His Pure-Heart Eye scanned them in a single sweep:
[SCAN: 30 HONEST DELIVERY COURIERS (INCLUDING OLD MA)]
[AVERAGE MORAL INTEGRITY: 81–90/100 (UNDERPAID, DILIGENT, CHEATED BY STATION LEASES)]
[TOTAL ACCUMULATED DEPOSIT THEFT & WITHHELD WAGES: ¥3,000,000.00 RMB]
Lin Mo pulled out his matte emerald-green Benevolence Charity Card and handed it to CEO Su Wan, who had just stepped through the gate accompanied by four paramedic teams from Taichu Hospital.
“Su Wan,” Lin Mo said calmly.
“Yes, Chairman Lin,” Su Wan answered, stepping forward with her digital banking terminal.
“Wire one hundred thousand yuan in cash directly into the bank account of Old Ma and every one of these twenty-nine honest brothers,” Lin Mo instructed. “Classify it as emergency trauma relief and resignation compensation from Taichu Benevolence Group.”
The twenty-nine riders froze in stunned disbelief.
“One... one hundred thousand yuan?” Xiao Liu stammered, pulling out his cheap smartphone.
DING! DING! DING!
Thirty phones buzzed simultaneously across the muddy yard.
Every rider looked down at their cracked screens. A verified electronic notification from the municipal commercial bank flashed before their eyes:
Your account ending in 4108 has received a direct wire transfer of ¥100,000.00 RMB. Remitter: Taichu Benevolence Group.
Old Ma stared at his phone, his weathered face trembling. “One hundred thousand... that is five years of delivery wages... for each of us...”
Brother Da-Hai collapsed to his knees, pressing his forehead against his work bag in tears. “My daughter’s tuition is saved... my mother’s medicine is paid for...”
Tears spilled down the faces of thirty battle-hardened couriers who had braved rain, snow, and arbitrary fines for years without a word of sympathy.
Paramedic teams from Taichu Hospital immediately attended to Old Ma, applying cooling Century Snow-Lotus balm to his ribs and wrapping his chest in sterile orthopedic braces.
“Xiao Mo, keep this delivery receipt,” Old Ma whispered, trying to hand over his leather pouch. “The medicine reached the baby on time. I did not fail the customer.”
“You did not fail anyone, Captain Ma,” Lin Mo said, pressing Old Ma’s hand back down. “Rest your ribs. In ten minutes, you will receive your new fleet.”
The paramedics gently lifted Old Ma onto an air-cushioned stretcher, wheeling him toward the luxury emergency transport van waiting by the gate.
Su Wan tapped the final authorization key, clearing the three-million-yuan disbursement.
A crisp, majestic chime echoed deep inside Lin Mo’s consciousness:
[DING! RIGHTEOUS WORKER LIBERATION EXPENDITURE DETECTED!]
[TARGET: 30 HONEST DELIVERY COURIERS (GOODNESS: 81–90/100)!]
[SPENT: ¥3,000,000.00 RMB!]
[100x PURE-HEART REBATE TRIGGERED: +¥300,000,000.00 RMB!]
[PERSONAL VAULT BALANCE: ¥45,792,680,000.50 RMB!]
[BENEVOLENCE MERIT POINTS: +300,000 BMP (TOTAL: 47,900,528 BMP)!]
[GOOD PEOPLE NETWORK EXPANDED: 950 -> 980 MEMBERS!]
Golden qi swirled peacefully through Lin Mo’s dantian.
Boss Wang looked at the thirty riders holding their phones, then looked at Lin Mo. He broke into an ugly, desperate sneer.
“So what if you gave them three million yuan, Lin Mo?” Boss Wang spat, pointing at the chained scooters. “Their scooters belong to my station! Their delivery accounts are locked on the municipal logistics platform!”
“In Jiangcheng, every delivery app is controlled by the Three-Rivers Logistics Alliance! Without scooters and without an app, these thirty bums are officially blacklisted! Within a week, they will be out of food and begging me for work!”
Lin Mo looked at Boss Wang’s arrogant face and let out a soft, amused chuckle.
“Who said they need your death-trap scooters?” Lin Mo asked, his eyes gleaming with cold amusement. “Who said they need your crooked app? Watch what rolls down this street in ten minutes.”